#181: Wolf Man (2025)

Oh good another movie about generational trauma. I’m the plus side, naming the daughter Ginger was a nice nod to the classic Ginger Snaps. Somewhat interesting to show half the movie from the wolf’s perspective but it doesn’t really add that much. Not interesting enough to really make the remake worthwhile.

#180: Thunderbolts* (2025)

Pugh and Harbour are great and every moment the film spends with them is fantastic. I yield to no man in my appreciation of Ms. Pugh. Unfortunately the JLD stuff doesn’t really work, although she gives a good performance. And then there is the situation with Bob. Look, the Thunderbolts work because they solve ground level problems not world threatening supervillains and they kinda sorta try to get around that but still. Can we not have lesser stakes anymore? Also, can we not have every goddamn super hero and horror movie really be about depression? Bonus points for the post-credits David Brooks slam shown above.

#179: End of Days (1999)

Extremely 90s but not in a particularly good way – action gunfights over the plot making sense, big explosions, etc. Byrne is around 75% as good a Satan as Pacino, which is high praise, but he is not well served by the script, which treats him as a supervillain with inconsistent power levels instead of crafty and sinister and praying on humanity’s own worst impulses. Not not fun but overall kind of meh despite a more modulated than usual performance from Ahnold.

#178: Fallen (1998)

Far too slow in pace, and for a movie that relies on various twists and reveals they are all FAR too telegraphed. A Denzel movie should be better. He is great in it, of course. Although, I have to admit that this is one of the vanishingly rare times where my least favorite cinematic crutch – starting with a scene then going back to tell the story that led up to it – is actually used to add something to the tale. So against my better judgment I have bumped it up for that.

#177: The Red Shoes (1948)

Chicks be crazy, man.

This is supposedly about the sacrifices one faces to be a good artist, but (at least through modern eyes) it is really about the inhumanity of the two male leads – one thoughout the movie who demands total sacrifice for art but as far as I can tell has no actual artistic role himself whatever – he heads the company but he’s not a director, I guess he’s the finance guy? (And I know finance people in the theatre and they are proud of supporting the arts but they do not think of themselves as artists.) And then the loving supportive guy makes a grand romantic gesture but demands that she immediately come with him, she is not to be allowed a single performance, she has to come with him now now now or else he will.leave her forever. Of course she then goes insane and throws herself off a cliff. Suuuuuuure OK. I think I may just have a problem with older films that are more allegorical – the characters are just not realistic enough in their motivations for my sensibilities. I will admit that the extended ballet sequence is pretty awesome though.

#176: Slice (2018)

There was something here that didn’t get fully realized – oddly detailed worldbuilding that was never explained just lived in, which was great. Unfortunately, the movie was more interested in being cute than in having, you know, a plot that made sense or anything. We never even really found out why delivery people were being killed – it was much more interesting when there was a whole assembled underground association of delivery people but they lost interest in that quickly too. Another few rewrites and it could have been great (or maybe just worse, who knows).

#175: Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)

I dunno man I just don’t dig stories about oversexed alpha assholes fighting about having slept with each other’s girlfriends and doing drugs and shit. Just not my scene. Also, I’m not sure what was going on with the various side notes of protests and political unrest. Never actually explored and not sure what was intended by showing and occasionally noting it. Maybe that was the point? Maybe the point is that this is really a story about Luisa even though it is told from the perspective of the boys?

Up Next: Don’t Worry, We Will Get Through This Tier of Movies Together

#188: The Postcard Killings (2020)

Per my notes, this was ”adequate but overblown, with a decent bait and switch that is resolved too soon.” I do not actually remember anything else about this, so I put it here as a compromise and out of respect for Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

#187: Spencer Confidential (2020)

Extremely formulaic but surprisingly well acted, especially Alan Arkin (duh) and Iliza Shlesinger. Not something you have to pay close attention to – if you walked out of the room for a couple of scenes you would know right where things were picking up when you came back.

#186: Coming Home in the Dark (2021)

Boy oh boy do I not recommend this….so I will spoil it (kinda) and tell you that the bad guys murder the two boys early on and not in a nice way at all (not that being nice about it would be any better). Having said that, the tension on this is ramped all the way up in a highly realistic and terrifying way for a good 90 minutes. So while I would definitely not recommend it, it’s not actually bad per se.

#185: Ripley’s game (2002)

As we all know, it can be dangerous to see a movie after reading the book, especially if it’s in close proximity. I love the Ripley books (although learn from me children – do not learn about the life and personal beliefs of Patricia Highsmith), but this movie removes all of the ambiguity; it’s extremely frustrating.  Malkovich is a good Ripley but not perfect – too cold, too calculating, too deliberate; he’s no Andrew Scott (#1) or Matt Damon (#1A).

#184: Synchronic (2019)

Decent idea but disappointingly sensible and straightforward in execution – right when it’s needed, an expert comes in to Explain Exactly What Is Going On and is, of course, completely correct about everything. I hate that! Why??? It’s my second-biggest movie pet peeve (after “one month earlier” and the like). Benson and Moorhead (who brought us, among other things, the wonderfully inexplicable The Endless) are normally beyond such things so I assume it was mandated for this bigger-than-usual-for-them production. Anyway, it’s fine, even if everything ends up being too convenient and the plot twists are obvious from a mile away. I demand justice for Hawking!!!

#183: Hard Eight (1996)

I didn’t get it. Philip Baker Hall is perfect but I never felt like the characters were doing things for understandable reasons – very unusual for a PTA film. And I definitely didn’t get whatever was going on with Clementine….what? It gets this high for Hall alone.

#182: Murder at 1600 (1997)

Man, remember when Wesley Snipes was a movie star? Those were the days.

This is a perfectly adequate movie of its type, even if all of the twists were completely obvious from 10 minutes in or less. Snipes had some impressive physical moves in his fight scenes that were clearly him and not a stunt double, which was nice, and he worked his charisma throughout – too bad about the tax cheat business

Up Next: Look, I watched a lot of movies last year and this is the middle of the bell curve. I promise we’ll get to good movies soon.

#195: Psych 3: This Is Gus (2021)

Psych is one of my favorite shows – not a show that I think is particularly great, but such a fun show and one that always felt like everyone involved in it was having such a great time, and it did all the little things right. Anyway, this is my way of saying that I really can’t remember anything about this movie per se. I know I had a good enough time watching it, but I would only recommend it to someone who really loved the tv show.

#194: Slender Man (2018)

Basically decent if formulaic creature horror. I will say that it’s shockingly easy to summon the Slender Man – so many kids should be so very dead if SM really shows up that easily. The characters are very iffy in their motivations and characterizations – the one “normal” friend being all like “sure Katie has been missing ever since that profane dark magic midnight ceremony in the forest, and Chloe sure seems to be a zvumbie now but I have track practice now, so…” doesn’t seem very believable.

#193: In a Violent Nature (2024)

Good idea – a Friday the 13th style movie shot from the perspective of the unlikable evil behemoth. Unfortunately, nothing else about this is particularly interesting or original. The victim kids are boring and annoying – I assume on purpose, but it made it much easier to just root for kills without examining what we’re doing or being conflicted at all about it. The kills were extremely gory, but not actually any fun? So overall it gets this high for concept but don’t watch unless you’re a big horror person.

#192: Bugonia (2025)

Probably the most frustrating movie I saw in 2025. If you are interested in seeing this but haven’t yet, skip the next paragraph.

If they had just played it straight, I would have loved it – there was some really solid work here, and the last turn before they ruined everything was brilliant. But nooooooo, Yorgos just had to go and have her be an alien, and not just that but have him be exactly right about everything even down to the drawing of the ship, which is just stupid and not at all ironic or funny or deep but just plain stupid. So frustrating! They could have even had her be an alien just have him still be completely wrong and then it would have been annoying but still how did the stupid idiot figure out that she’s an alien haha, but nooooooo. Went from an A- to a C+ in five poorly thought-out minutes.

#191: Your Monster (2024)

Fun weird little movie with a HUGE tonal shift out of the blue at the end that totally shook me out of it.

What? Sometimes I don’t have too much to say about a movie. It happens!

#190: Spirited Away (2001)

As previously discussed, I am an inhuman monster who just cannot find these Studio Ghibli movies charming and fun. Like, I get that they’re incredibly inventive, which I appreciate, and they supposedly simulate childlike wonder, but I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s because I’m not a huge fan of the animation style? In any case, the “plot” (such as it is) of this one didn’t land for me at all. It was fine? I preferred Totoro.

#189: The Gorge (2025)

Two very different movies – the first half is actually a really nice relationship / romance tale, while the second half is a pretty lame and silly sci-fi “thriller” with nonsense monsters fighting against guns with infinite bullets. Perfect Reznor score – really well done there, loved the industrial aspects, extremely tense. The leads were both great in the parts of the movie where they were allowed to act, as opposed to running from CGI.

Up Next: I think we have 2 more sets of these and then we’re on to films I actually liked! Hooray!

#202: The Deliverance (2024)

So I obviously decided to watch this as part of my ongoing search for good new horror movies, but it turned out to be a pretty decent family drama instead. Unfortunately it ultimately fell into a standard demonic-possession Christianity drama, allegedly based on a true story. Ooof. Glenn Close makes a surprisingly good turn as a fun sexy grandma though.

#201: Escape Room (2019)

Decent idea with good practical F/X underdone by an utterly predictable script. Among other issues, it suffers from the terrible infuriating inescapable moronic plague trend of showing us almost the end and then cutting to “three days earlier.” Also, the way they set up the premise is pretty ridiculous – I get why some of these people might take the bait, but for others it’s obviously not interesting or worth it and would seem like a ridiculous scam – yet no one is ever actually close to walking away when some of them would obviously never have even shown up to this thing in the first place. If you can’t figure out why your characters would agree to do the thing, then maybe try rewrites? And of course there was absolutely no way for the bad guys to know half (or more) of the stuff they knew just because the plot wanted them to.

#200: Dr. Detroit (1983)

Sorry, Claire. This was fun in an extremely specific 80’s kind of way and I can see how if I had seen this in ‘83 when I was 13 I might have really loved it, but watching it in 2025 was asking me to accept a bit too much in terms of what is still funny instead of cringy. Some great lines though.

#199: Clown in a Cornfield (2025)

Pretty much what it says on the tin. The leads were quite good (particularly Vincent Muller and Katie Douglas) and there were some good moments, but it needed to be at least 25% more clever instead of just resting on its laurels about being a movie about a clown….in a cornfield….killing people.

#198: The Frighteners (1996)

This had so much potential, especially with a good Michael J. Fox performance. It’s still not bad, but the rules about how the ghosts work and what they can do change constantly based on script needs, and non-MJF character actions are essentially determined by a random number generator. Also, we see the murdered people essentially going to heaven which kind of dulls the whole impact of the deaths? Oh no! Not my eternal reward! Anything but that!

#197: Train Dreams (2025)

Beautifully shot and lovingly acted but just so so sad – basically trauma porn. Too much horrible stuff to bear for me. If you can handle a ton of terrible things happening to a basically decent man (I understand he’s much more complicated in the book but he’s almost wholly without fault in the movie), then I would recommend this, but it was not for me.

#196: Until Dawn (2025)

Mostly by-the-numbers video game slasher, although there are some parts that are that better than they had to be (don’t drink the water!). The premise would be tiresome but they openly mock it pretty well so that makes it more bearable.  Unfortunately, they feel compelled to try to explain everything and….well….no. Doesn’t make sense and is frankly pretty stupid.

Up Next: More Not Quite Good Enough

So we have moved on to one of the biggest categories on the bell curve – the films that are just under the line for me to recommend them. These are not actually good, but they’re not really bad. Often there is a quality idea with subpar execution, sometimes underbaked concepts, sometimes just bad performances in key roles. These movies don’t need to be publicly flogged, but they should be disappointed in themselves.

#209: Till Death (2021)

Mildly intriguing concept, done in such a way as to avoid making it interesting at all – at each point they made the choice that would be the most mainstream blah – the husband is not conflicted but is so loathsome that we are actively rooting for his death well before it comes. And Meghan Fox isn’t nearly a good enough actor to make us interested in whether or not her character survives. On the low end of “fine.”

Also… “Till” Death? With two L’s? Until only has 1 L. Clean up your damn act, movie.

#208: Dangerous Minds (1995)

Oh good, a white savior movie! We definitely always need more of those! Pfeiffer does her best but the plot has zero surprises, on top of the whole…you know…white savior issue. Best thing to come from this is the great Gangsta’s Paradise (which itself led to the classic Amish Paradise, obviously).

#207: Casper (1995)

Cute in its way, but too many yikes moments to really get it over the line. Everyone being instructed to overact as much as possible was certainly a choice, although boy did Eric Idle phone it in.

#206: Touch Me (2026?)

Really respect what they were going for here – roughly speaking, A comedic, silly sci-fi story about self-improvement and tentacle porn. The effects, particularly the, um, tentacles are ridiculously low-fi in a mostly fun way and the morning workouts (see above) were amazing.

Unfortunately, they don’t really do anything with the concept. It’s cute but there really is nothing there outside of the inherent humorousness of the whole tentacle thing and a few other nice bits.

Saw this at Sundance, which was definitely the right setting for it, but I don’t think it’s been picked up yet. Not a good sign.

#205: Enigma (2025)

Very interesting documentary about an earlier transgender French community and cabaret culture, but the movie just would not shut up with all the “And you’re trans right?  Right?  Right?” Way too much. And the interviewer inserted herself too much into the movie for my taste; I don’t require a Errol Morris Interrotron for every documentary but this level of involvement made it more about the filmmaker than I cared for, particularly in light of all the nagging of the poor subject about something she clearly didn’t want to directly address.

#204: Kraven the Hunter (2024)

Shockingly not terrible! Much better than the other bad Sony marvel movies, but, you know, that doesn’t mean that it’s actually good. There was some bad acting (particularly Ariana DuBose, but nobody is going to have this on their personal clip roll), not great plotting (plenty of weird character flip flops), but there were some good fight scenes, it generally made sense, and nobody struggled and failed repeatedly to open a can of Pepsi.

#203: Havoc (2025)

Not bad, but bitterly disappointing from the writer/director of The Raid 2. The high point is obviously the action sequences, but even then it’s hard to suspend my disbelief when every gun apparently has a clip of 427 bullets. Really, you should just skip to the big fight scenes at 0:53 and 1:14.

It’s also unclear how we are supposed to be feel about the supposed antihero who it turns out wasn’t actively involved in the really bad stuff from the past that his “friends” keep talking about him being involved in, and isn’t actually a bad guy. At the end Hardy makes the appropriate point that Olyphant is the only one left that has anything on him, then they shoot it out and he kills Olyphant, then his partner shows up and says “what now?” And he says “now you arrest me” and I’m like what? You just pointed out that there is nobody left to tell on you! Why would you be arrested? And if it’s for the big shootout then the partner should be just as arrested! What???

Up Next: Are You Kidding? We Haven’t Even Hit 200 Yet?

#216: The Devil’s Pass (2013)

Lame takeoff of Blair Witch has some interesting “based on a true story” stuff but with a bunch of plot holes and woo woo nonsense exposition. I would’ve preferred an actual documentary on the Dyatlov Pass Incident (although as I understand it it’s basically a solved mystery at this point.

#215: Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025)

Long-term readers of this here blog will recall how much I loved the original trilogy in this series and those who followed me back when I was a twitter slave* know that my horror movie mantra of “never stop stabbing” originated with them as well.

So it was a pretty big comedown to watch this installment just be unimaginative dreck. Rote 80’s-style horror although at least there are so many suspects that it’s basically impossible to guess at who the killer is. But the 80’s gore without any inventiveness didn’t do it for me and the plotting was meh. Pass.

*The one thing I have to give to Elon is inadvertently rescuing me from social media, since as soon as he bought it I knew it would turn into a terrible cesspool.

#214: The Mother (2023)

Interesting that this is a standardized genre now – JLo plays the badass secret agent / assassin / rogue spy who has to give up her daughter for the daughter’s own good and then when the shit hits the fan has to teacher her to be an assassin at 12. This one doesn’t really work as a spy action thriller or a heartwarming family drama.

#213: Gladiator II (2024)

A pale imitation of the original. Denzel is widely acknowledged as the only good part of the film, and yes he is having fun, but honestly even he isn’t having a good time, not really. CGI flattens the big scenes in a way not seen in the original. The archers are perfect when the script needs them to be and incompetent otherwise (I guess they went to the Imperial Stormtrooper Sharpshooting Academy). People switch their life-long held beliefs based on single conversations.

#212: Emilia Perez (2024)

What. The. Holy. Fuck.

Gets this high for the sheer audacity. The second-biggest surprise* is the Zoe Saldana can really sing

I am reasonably sure that this movie features the only high-tempo musical dance number set in a post-op gender confirmation clinic. Unfortunately that fact doesn’t make this a movie that actually makes sense or that is sufficiently gonzo throughout to be fun.

*You know, after <waves around frantically> everything.

#211: The Tree if Life (2011)

Begins as a compelling family drama that is interrupted by extended ludicrous and over-weighty nature sequences that are sometimes very cool and are sometimes the dinosaurs being wiped out for some reason and extensive fairly generic B roll of kids growing up. Maybe I’m too cold hearted or dim to get it but yeeeeesh. All the direct discussion with God stuff is….not original or compelling.

I also did not care for the introduction of Pitt’s dad character as a basic good guy then gradually revealing that he’s actually a pretty typical 50s character abusive dad (granted more emotionally than physically but still) – just manipulative and mean spirited. I will say, it was beautifully shot, and the parts allegedly in Houston were definitely in Houston, including my building.

I think the record will show that I can really love some of this deep philosophical shit but this just did not land for me at all and it all seemed like a weird distraction from a thin but somewhat interesting story about a 50s family that I’ve seen a bunch before; why couldn’t we just focus on that instead of all the weighty loaded BS.

(I really wanted to put this widely-acknowledged classic of the 21st century behind Emilia Perez but I just couldn’t quite do it)

#210: A Serious Man (2009)

JFC all these people are just terrible! Selfish, thoughtless assholes who cannot think of anyone other than themselves. Is this supposed to be funny? I guess its a satire of some kind but its just infuriating. And like it’s the Book of Job I guess, I get it, but that doesnt make it fun to watch, and the Devine testing you is one thing, but people have free will and when everyone acts that way all the time, screw them you know? And yes yes yes i get it about the ending reinforcing the theme that its not about getting the answers but omfg it was so frustrating. Ughhhh!!

Up Next: The Group That Wasn’t Quite Good Enough To Get Over the Line

#223: Trigger Warning (2024)

I maintain a long, long list of movies that I haven’t seen that have been recommended or that I think I might like or that are on some list that I am compulsively going through*. But even with that to-do list sometimes, like everyone does, I end up just scrolling through things on Netflix or one of the other services looking for something that seems interesting. Thus….Trigger Warning, starring Jessica Alba as a young woman who comes home to bury her father and…I dunno, take down the crime syndicate that was behind it or something? Anyway, this turns out to be standard Netflix dreck. Alba is fine enough, but the plot is silly and the action is poor.

*Only 18 left on the Sight and Sound Top 100 and 39 on the Rotten Tomatoes Horror Top 200!

#222: High Rise (2015)

Part heavy-handed metaphor, part fever dream, part our protagonist going insane, all in a weird 70s pastiche. Doesn’t actually make sense in a, you know, linear plot-like way, or even really as an allegory, but gets this high for a reasonably game Hiddleston performance.

#221: The Sandlot (1993)

Another hearty lookback to the 50s (or I guess 1962 in this case) where everything was simpler and nicer and barrrrfffff. I dunno maybe im just an old grump but this did nothing for me. Maybe I just am particularly sick and tired of appeals to the “good old days” right now because…<waves at everything>. The kids were not like kids, the adult looking back narration was grating, and I just generally dont go for this sort of thing. Although! Big exception for the James Earl Jones plotline that was genuinely nice, even thought the idea that that dog was terrifying was ludicrous.

#220: Orphan (2009)

Just incredibly frustrating, as everyone in the movie refuses to have even the slightest suspicion of the terrible murdering “girl” no matter how much evidence it is that she is doing this stuff. Augh!

#219: Under Suspicion (2000)

Wants to be some kind of Basic Instinct or Silence of the Lambs or something, but the script just isn’t there to support it and Freeman and Hackman are given nothing to work with that that can use to turn it into something interesting. Finally gets mildly interesting at the very end, but the payoff still isn’t worth it

#218: Melancholia (2011)

Yeah so I didn’t get this at all. It has to be about something sub or meta textual (beyond the obvious flaming metaphor of the goddamn planet named Melancolia) but this mildly depressed woman has everyone in her life being total and complete utter assholes and, surprise surprise, she becomes severely clinically depressed, like, yeah, no kidding? I guess you could say that the movie is about two ways of dealing with human existence – depression and anxiety, but, like, you know that there are other ways too yes? There are ways of making meaning? I dunno, didn’t like it, ick. The first half had a great performance by Dunst as the living embodiment of depression I guess?

#217: The Damned (2024)

Compelling first 30 minutes of desperate people making terrible ethical choices (because there are no good ones) but then it becomes fairly rote and ends on a “haha no they were all just going crazy” without any real setup or nearly enough signposts on the way that that could’ve been the issue. Could’ve been good with some rewrites and or better direction but nope.

Up Next: The End of This Category!

#229: Blink (1994)

Extremely 90s thriller with reprehensible sexual politics and few if any likable characters. Fun to mock with movie club though!

#228: Cloud (2024)

The record will show that I am a huge fan of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, but his willingness to take risks and be unconventional can sometimes….well, they can’t all be winners.  His latest is bizarre – nobody acts like a real person, neither the affectless protagonist, his bizarrely devoted assistant, or the gang of people who decide to murder him, mostly just ‘cuz (seriously, one of them has a legitimate gripe, one apparently decides to murder him for absolutely no reason, one is in it for the kicks, and one…..was his former boss who really liked him?  What?). Then his girlfriend who broke up with him because he was ignoring her (fair enough!) comes back with a gun too?). I assume he was going for some kind of allegory but I just didn’t see it here. Late-stage capitalism is bad?

#227: Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

Hard to imagine why this didn’t work – fun idea, great cast…it just needed to be either about 5 times sillier or else entirely serious on its face. Instead it ended up kind of…boring? The one villain was not really all that villainous, the main hero figure was not that heroic, and even Clooney was not that interesting and boy does that character need to be interesting. Yawn

#226: Monster Squad (1987)

Cute and definitely had its moments, but overall too ‘87 for me – the period-accurate kid homophobia and misogyny was difficult to overcome, and then there was Albertan Dracula with his traditional powers of super strength, power blasts from his fists, and using dynamite. I feel bad that poor Wolf Man had to die and that good pure and noble Frankenstein was sucked into the void for no reason at the end.

#225: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025)

Among other issues, this really suffered from trying to be the capstone for the series – so many flashbacks early, so much overbearing dialogue, every single thing from the prior movies has to specifically tie into this one for no actual reason – even the old great stunts are redone here as the big set pieces are on biplanes and underwater. I’m honestly amazed that there wasn’t a skyscraper scene.

The plot had a disappointing number of holes and things that just didn’t make sense – why would killing the entity destroy the internet? (Which, by the way, it doesn’t – once it happens they just don’t mention it anymore), why would anyone think that a preemptive nuclear strike would work? Why do we know the exact countdown, to the second, that the Entity will need to break through everyone’s defenses? And of course, the first movie is just made irrelevant – turns out you don’t need two keys after all, haha!

And what’s the deal with the bad guys? Gabriel was interesting when he was the personal manifestation of the Entity, now he’s another random bad guy trying to take over the world with a ton of random goons willing to throw away their lives because it advances his plans. And what happened to the all powerful Entity? In the last movie it was interesting because how were they going to overcome this awesome all-knowing thing and its agents that it helped see five moves ahead. But now it can do nothing but create the countdown and wait for Gabriel and others to outmaneauver it? I dunno, just really disappointing despite the nice Trammell Tillman casting. Easily theworst one of the series.

#224: Taste of Cherry (1997)

They are not kidding when they all this minimalist. Yikes, I could describe the plot in one sentence, and one without too many independent clauses. It didn’t seem that deep either? Sometimes I wonder if I am just not deep enough to “get” movies like this.

Up Next: More poor, misguided films

We move on to the films that made me sad – not because they effectively moved me to empathize with the characters, of course – don’t be silly! – but because they’re annoying and bad. The movies in this group weren’t offensive for the most part; this is where the boring movies with no point for existing lurk, along with other misguided flops that I was tricked into viewing.

#235: Heart of Stone (2023)

Per my notes, this is a Standard Netflix Movie-Shaped Entertainment Program ™. Of course I started taking notes because I sometimes I have difficulty remembering some of the movies I watched, but this was meant to just slide off my brain smoothly and leave no trace. Even looking at my notes I have no idea what this was about. Was it some kind of spy thing?  The part of me that temporarily remembered it noted that it didn’t really make sense and that the Heart of Stone (?) was a completely ridiculous macguffin at the heart of the plot.  They really really need to stop trying to make Gal Godot happen, too.

#234: Caveat (2021)

The freakish rabbit thing with the drum is definitely the most interesting part of the movie, and is featured in all marketing and thumbnails of the film. Of course the rabbit ultimately means nothing and is barely even in the movie, which suggests the depths of the plot are truly impressive.

#233: Surrogates (2009)

Yes, sadly, that is Bruce Willis. Completely ridiculous concept – everyone uses robots so there is no crime? What??? The situationally fun stuff they do with the avatar robots doesn’t nearly compensate for the ridiculous premise and total lack of understanding human behavior. And it has a classic “oh we fixed this one thing so everything is entirely better now” ending. Freaking Electric State handled it better for goodness sake.

#232: Omni Loop (2024)

Wants to be a nice melancholy look at learning to accept yourself and your life and enjoy the now, while also taking advantage of the Edibirissance, but it really gets bogged down with depressiveness and a bit too much self-indulgence. Also a rare film that is tremendously brought down by its soundtrack – mind-numbingly repetitive synths that just would not stop.

#231: 25th Hour (2002)

There might have been a good movie here, it’s just a shame that Spike Lee wasn’t interested in telling it. Good performances really brought down by things like a 5 minute (not exaggerating) rant to the camera about the various new York neighborhoods and common, weird double-shots, long lingering shots of the twin towers site with no connection to the movie, slow-motion car ride-by of all the archetypes mentioned during the rant, another 5-minute monologue about what could happen if he runs for it, etc. Desperately needed less (or at least less obvious) directing. Pretty sure this is my lowest-ranked Phillip Seymour Hoffman film too – of course he is fine, but his character is ridiculous.

#230: Now You See Me 2 (2016)

Possibly more preposterous thing about this whole franchise is the idea that magicians are the most famous/important people in the entire world and a powerful secret society righting wrongs and controlling things, and that there is a huge FBI task force hunting them full time for….reasons….and that they can instantly draw huge, appreciative crowds everywhere they go. Like, seriously? What? Leaving that aside, though, the main thing that made the first once fun to watch was that all the double crosses (and triple crosses, etc) weren’t totally expected.  So here we know that these movies are going to involve a ton of double crosses, which makes them so much less effective – when you never trust anyone you can’t be surprised when they do something nasty.

Up Next: More of the same, yay!

#240: Dead Calm (1989)

I just can’t stand a psychological thriller when the psychology is this unbelievable. There is also intro about a dead kid that was notable only for an insane “fake kid flying through windshield” sequence and otherwise has no reason to exist. Sam Neill goes off early into an entirely different movie about fixing a boat and, possible worst of all, there is a dog who exists only to be in peril and ultimately killed. Unacceptable.

#239: Kill Me Again (1989)

Wants so so SO bad to be Body Heat but it really kind of sucked? Editing was terrible, sound was bad, even Val was lifeless and uninteresting, which was shocking.

#238: Virtuosity (1995)

Yeah, no. Russell Crowe is the only one who knows what kind of movie he’s in and he hams it up nicely, Denzel tries to play it straight though – ossibly because Denzel just cannot yet accept that he’s in some schlock – but it just makes him feel like he doesn’t fit the film. The script is just pretty bad and the “futuristic” F/X are pretty abysmal – although the fashion would potentially better than what we actually got.

#237: Play Dirty (2025)

So it turns out that Prime can do Netflix dreck too! Really too bad because this cast is quite good – Marky W is reliable; Rosa Salazar is fantastic when the script gives her anything interesting to do; Claire Lovering pulls off a miracle by actually making her joke land; Keegan Michael-Key is always fun; Tony Shaloub does a good bad guy (though he’s no Albert Brooks in Drive). But the script is terrrrible, too much bad GCI, every twist is telegraphed from 40 miles away, the plot doesn’t make sense and the whole caper depends on too many people deciding to take certain specific actions exactly a certain way at an exact time. Oh and the entire movie hinges on everyone forgetting the initial deadly betrayal almost immediately after it happens, which takes the stakes way down for most of the rest of the movie. It does get an extra half-star for having the courage of its convictions for the ending at least.

#236: To Catch a Killer (2023)

What a weird mix of a movie – feel written and directed by a committee. Is it a thriller or a process movie or some kind of weirdo political polemic? We see a ton of people get executed by the best sharpshooter in history and then we’re supposed to feel sorry for him maybe? The old captain is suddenly revealed to be sick and then of course he dies more or less immediately. Not sure what Woodley is trying to do but at least she’s incredibly interesting doing it and district much better material than this.

Up Next: I Have To Find Another Stephen King Quote About Stuff That is Bad But This Time Not Quite As Bad As This Other Stuff